Irish-Australian IT alliance

Four IT partnerships between Irish and Australian firms were announced at a business breakfast hosted by Enterprise Ireland in Sydney recently, which was attended by President Mary McAleese.

Irish IT company Eontec has formed a strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems and IBM to deliver next-generation enterprise banking solutions in the Australian market.

Irish e-learning firm Educational Multimedia has partnered with the Australian Computer Society to provide a complete turnkey PC learning and skills certification solution to the job-seeking clients of community service organisation, Mission Australia.

Cummins Engines, the world’s largest designer and manufacturer of diesel engines, has partnered with Ireland’s fastest growing e-learning company, Electric Paper, to deliver workplace compliancy training to over 1,300 employees across the South Pacific region. The project is being co-ordinated from the Cummins Australian headquarters and Electric Paper’s Melbourne-based Australian office.

As part of an exclusive agreement, Irish communications software, technology and products company, Lake Communications and Australia’s Commander Communications are introducing a new communications platform for small businesses. This will allow small businesses to easily manage basic telephone communications through to more complex internal/external call-handling options and link internet and ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) via a single high-speed internet connection throughout the office.

With the trade balance between Australia and Ireland currently running at around AUS$1bn (€510m) per annum, the announced deals are set to further increase Irish trade with Australia, as well as boosting domestic sales figures for the Australian companies involved.

Addressing an audience of over 100 people from the IT, consulting, corporate, telecommunications, government, not-for-profit and financial services sectors, President McAleese said: “This is a welcome occasion where we can strengthen existing business relationships between Ireland and Australia and build new ones. It is also an opportunity to look more closely at the development of commercial and trade links between our two countries and to focus in particular on what can be identified as areas of significant future potential.”

Michael Garvey, Asia Pacific director of Enterprise Ireland says: “Given Ireland’s place amongst the top three software exporters in the world, its strong research and development base and its thriving indigenous IT sector of over 600 companies, it is not surprising that many of these deals reflect the world-leading technologies and innovations coming out of Ireland.”